Sunday, August 02, 2009
Life, In this Issue...

Stories of hope

An introspective look into lives affected by the recession

By Phalia McCorkle-Kester, Autumn Bond-Ross and Jennifer Maciejewski

It was on a cool night three months ago that I found myself sitting in the back of the parking lot trying to make a decision: to go in or go home.

The economy hadn’t been good for my family. We had moved to Atlanta in August with the promise of work and arrived to find a dead economy and withdrawn promises. Months or scraping had found me sitting in the parking lot of the Pink Pony at 10 p.m., pondering whether I should go inside to apply for a serving job with the strip club.

I prompted myself by saying, “Hey, I wear a couple of low-cut shirts and a pair of tight jeans.” At least I wasn’t taking it all off. But after calling my husband and sitting in the lot for about 30 minutes, I couldn’t make myself get out of the car.

I eventually started the car and drove home on the verge of tears, thinking how this might have been the one shot to keep up with food or keep us under a roof. How I might have blown everything because, despite a degree and mounds of work experience, nothing was biting for me, and my highly intelligent, former-sports-editor husband was now working in a warehouse so we could make ends meet.

I began to think of our transition from a three-bedroom house to a two-bedroom apartment; from no aid to food stamps; from weekend meals to coupons and dumpster diving. Our lives had made a total 180-degree turn in a matter of months. Our families don’t even realize how hard it’s been. Yet many Atlantans, while strangers to me, are living just the same.

Courtesy of Phalia McCorkle-Kester

Often, I dread reading the paper or watching the news, because it’s just too depressing. Every time I watch, another company is laying off workers or going out of business. Sometimes I think, “Why pump myself up and believe things will get better when, according to the media, things are only getting worse?” What is there left to do?

Hope. I am hopeful that things will get better. I am hopeful that new jobs will come. I am hopeful that my home will be sold. I am hopeful that I will win the lottery (I’m sure many of you are hopeful of that as well!).

Through my strong sense of hope, I’ve developed a strong sense of perseverance. Every month, I post a calendar with free or dirt-cheap activities (Fernbank Science Center, anyone?) and kids-eat-free deals (Sweet Tomatoes on Wednesdays equals yummo!) for my family to partake in. I am a skilled job hound and have found many a way to get to the top of the pile.

I can stretch a penny until the copper wears off, and you’ll swear it’s a dirty pebble. If you dumpster-dive, I can give you recipes; if you are a coupon clipper, I can give you ways to compound your savings; if you need new shoes but have $2, I can point you to stores to find bargain-basement Manolos.

The recession is here, but you don’t have to fear. With a little hope and a whole lot of thriftiness, I believe we will see this through.—P.M.K.

Will work out for hot shower

Autumn Bond-Ross

I marched up to the desk at L.A. Fitness and said, “I am interested in signing up for your free one-week membership!” I should add that I’ve worked out about seven times in my life, except for that fitness class I was forced to take in college. I hate working out.

So did I suddenly find fitness religion? Yeah, no. My husband was laid off from a six-figure job more than a year before, we had exhausted our resources, and now the water in our beautiful home was ice-cold, because we could not pay our gas bill.

Only world-class losers let the utilities get turned off, right? I almost have two master’s degrees, but I found myself joining said fitness club to use the shower facilities while enthusing “Yes! Crunches are awesome!” I spent three days slinking through the lobby in my workout outfit (why?) heading straight for the showers, sans workout. The staff and I acted like members of a dysfunctional family who did not want to acknowledge my dirty little secret.

We encountered 18 months of discouraging setbacks: My husband was repeatedly told he was overqualified for jobs he would have gladly taken. We’d hired a negotiator to keep us out of foreclosure. We had a permanent job offer rescinded the day before Christmas, another job sight closed their doors, and we were forced to file a bankruptcy petition after my husband did secure a lucrative job, because it appeared we couldn’t work out our mortgage. More stuff happened, but you’ve been watching CNN, so I think you get the gist.

We adopted nicknames for each situation: Job Loss Willie, the Foreclosure Shuffle, and my favorite, the BK (Bankruptcy) Stink. We laughed, but we certainly cried. Through some fancy detective work, we found out some vital information had been withheld from us, and we were able to save our home and withdraw the bankruptcy petition. My husband has been employed for two months now, and we are rebuilding our lives. He also has started a business that’s showing great promise.

What’s important is that we made it through to the other side. We learned how to be our own best advocates in several situations where “experts” were telling us that we had no chance to get a good job, save our home and live a satisfying life despite our circumstances. You can argue we were lucky, but we were also defiantly creative. And we were able to hold on to hope, even in our darkest moments. And so can you. Here’s how:

• Be your own best advocate. Dig for creative, sometimes unknown solutions.
• Limit your exposure to negative stories. Learning how 3,500 people in Podunk, Neb., applied for a job making puppets out of taco sauce and yarn for $7 an hour is not going to boost your morale.
• Know that unemployment and financial crises are temporary states, not permanent ones. You will eventually find a job, get more money, or even secure another house.
• You cannot work on your financial, job or house problems 24/7. Getting away for even an hour can help rejuvenate your spirits and give you new ideas. We used to read at Barnes & Noble, and talk of money and jobs was off-limits.
• Even though you are in survival mode, this is a good time to reevaluate your interests and act on them. Did you hate that job you had? What would you do if you could do something else?
• Know that new beginnings are possible, even if you do experience major setbacks. If we had lost our home, we would have begun again.

Hope is possible in the darkest moments. Sometimes you can even laugh. Just remember to never give up and keep moving.—A.B.R.

Turning lemons into lemonade

Jennifer Maciejewski

Being self-employed has its perks: When unemployment topped 10 percent in Georgia, my first thought was, “I’ll try really hard not to fire myself today.” I rarely wear shoes to the office, and depending on my mood, my office is the couch, deck, kitchen table, desk or a restaurant with awesome food and free Wi-Fi. I can’t complain.

Well, actually I can complain. With the perks come the drawbacks of being a self-employed writer: I often work when I’m technically on vacation, and thanks to the economy, some long-term clients cut their budgets. Which cut my budget. A lot.

This time last year, I was living under my “it can’t happen to me” illusions. Every month, long-term clients would come to me with assignments, saving me the trouble of pitching article ideas to new-to-me markets and netting me a comfortable, mid-five-figures salary.

When the first client disappeared without a word (taking almost a quarter of my annual income with them), I chalked it up to a fluke, got busy and found a couple of new clients to fill in the gap. Clients No. 2 and No. 3 came clean about their money woes, but losing them still hurt. Those two clients alone accounted for more than half of my income.

If my writing business was going to survive, I had to diversify. Fast. Since print publications made up my top three list of lost clients, I used my newfound free time to build up my online writing credentials. I tracked down new-to-me paying markets, and I decided to create one of my own: Atlanta on the Cheap, a blog highlighting metro Atlanta’s best freebies and deals.

At first, I treated Atlanta on the Cheap like a platform-building project: It’d teach me how to blog, build my expertise about all things Atlanta, give me a convenient way to spread the word about deals I look for anyway, and legitimize my need to play around on Facebook and Twitter.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that Atlanta on the Cheap was becoming a permanent part of my day job. And since I don’t work for free, I had to turn it into an income stream.

As the ubiquitous “they” say, “You’ve got to spend money to make money,” and I believe that’s true. I hired a designer to give the site a new look (those of you who have read the site since last August may recall the original bare-bones logo), founded a network of similar “on the cheap” blogs, bought a few ads, and the list goes on.

But it’s worth it, and it’s starting to pay off. By the end of the year, I should reach my income goals for Atlanta on the Cheap with Google Ads alone.
 
I often tell people that I missed my calling as an arts and entertainment reporter. Either that or a professional student, but from what I can tell, it’s tricky to earn a living as either. Writing service pieces and profiles for print and online markets is the next best thing.

Atlanta on the Cheap may be better. The content has a service journalism feel to it—I could easily spin it into a “10 Ways to Experience Atlanta on the Cheap” article, though it’d be hard to choose just 10. In the name of research, I have to do things like go to the Atlanta Jazz Festival or check out Monet’s Water Lilies at the High. Best of all, I—not some faceless publisher—retain control over the site’s budget.

It’s work, but it’s a fun way to earn a living.—JM SP